This Recession is NOT Good for Business

How do I write this without sounding like a complainer or a cry-baby? Especially since I know a lot of you are going through some of the same type of drawbacks.

People just don’t want to spend money.

Clients I have had since the beginning, don’t want/need the expenditure for updates and minor tweaks. Unless it’s is a major system breakdown, they just want to wait until things get better.

Potential clients, people I have spoken with about starting a website or blog, just don’t want to do it now. They seem to be going with things like Blogger.com or WordPress.com instead of with their own domain (mistake, I know from experience).

Even long time advertisers on my sites either want discount rates or worse yet, cancel because they feel they don’t have the money to spend on advertising. They want to keep funds in-house for other purposes.

On a personal level, I am making cutbacks on things too, so I can understand their dilemma.

I attended SOBCon 07 & 08, but unless things pick up drastically, I doubt I will be able to get to Chicago for the 09 Event. I would love to go and it could even be good for business, but it may not be in the cards this year.

A couple of months back my Desktop died. I had all intentions to replace it with something more advanced. Not happening, I’ll be using the lappy as my main means of online and offline computing. This little Dell is going to get a workout.

We used to donate food for the homeless once a week. Now, if we can swing it, we will be give food directly to the church for distribution on a monthly basis.

All of this just barely scratches the surface of how the recession is affecting me and most likely you.

Maybe my problem is that I had a game plan, was honest with my customers and tried to do the right thing. I guess if I acted more like a bank or a car manufacturer, I could get a bail out from the government?

 Tell me… How are you fairing in this mess?